


Platinum

by orphan_account



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Irondad, Multi, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, miss marvel - Freeform, platinum - Freeform, spiderman - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-26
Updated: 2018-03-29
Packaged: 2019-04-08 12:06:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14105007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: He didn’t find Peter Parker in Civil War. No. He found him later. Tony found fourteen-year-old Sophia Amara Nars, a vibrant red-head with a personality just as vibrant as her appearance. She's a hidden talent under the noses of the whole world, having the suit tech and the pyrokinesis to prove it. Also, the daughter of an old friend? A plus. So he brings her to Leipzig, running out of options. Sophia thinks she's prepared for this, and she was, at first...But she was not prepared for everything else to come. Not Siberia. Not Miami. Definitely not her new-found parentage.NOTE: May be deleted in future due to discontinuation





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey.....Um, this is meh first fic on A03, so yay for me. It's just another stark kid fic and all. Kudos and comments are highly appreciated! So yeah, hope you like it  
> Woo

Sophia Amara Nars did not hear the doorbell ring through her headphones. Bose worked pretty well. 

The bedroom fan brushed against her skin as the brilliant Florida sunlight shone through her window. It made her already fan-lit bedroom extra bright against the mint greenish-blue walls and all the decorations.

Sophia turned off her headphones and looked out of her bedroom window to see a spicy red car outside of her home’s front entrance. 

“Who’s...Lamborghini is..that?” She muttered. 

“Sophia!”

Sophia popped off the bed and swung right outside her doorway, her feet on the gray-wooded hall, and ducked her head down over the rails, making her long auburn straights fall close to her eyes. Her also-redheaded mom was fifteen feet below her. “Come downstairs, there’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

Sophia furrowed her brows and started walking. “I didn’t think you had many rich friends, mom, that’s like the latest and most expensive Lamborghini model out there. I’m pretty sure that’s a 2016 Huracán-and don’t ask how I’m suddenly a sports car expert-I’m not!” She throws her hands out for a short second at the beginning of the stairs. 

“You’ll be surprised, Sophia, but he’s an old friend.”

“Ah. Lovely. Wonder who that is,” She finished by the time she got to the last step of the staircase. Her eyes looked to the living room and she blinked. 

He smile. “Oh, Miss Nars.”

“Ah.”

Sophia rested her right elbow on the rail to support her thumb pressing against one side of her nose while her curled index finger pressed against the other. She sighed, then taking them off her foundation-ed and powdered nose. “I didn’t think you were friends with people this out there.”

“Well, I am,” November “Nove” Nars replied with a mild smile. “Trust me, I was also a bit stunned to see him at the door, despite history.” A very long history was the one detail she did not add. 

Sophia exhaled and grinned. “Well, I’m Sophia.”

“Tony.”

She nodded. “I knew that. Um, if you don’t mind me asking, why exactly are you here?”

“The September Foundation Grant?”

Sophia dug into her memory until she saw a strange winking expression on his face. She nodded and then turned her face to her mother with giant toothy grin. “You know, Mom, I never told you about that grant.”

“Mhm. Why should that be a secret?”

Sophia shrugged. “Just is.”

“Um, if you don’t mind, Nove, can I talk to Sophia in her room for a minute?”

Nove nodded, all of her sense for oddness not showing on her face. “Sure.”

 

Tony locked the door behind him. 

“What exactly is the grant covering up here, Mr. Stark?” Sophia asks. 

“It’s covering up this,” He replies, then showing a visual of Sophia. Sophia, who was pretty much beating up a man to the ground. 

Sophia’s eyes grew and she nervously laughed. “Oh yeah, it’s me! Aren’t I a lovely sight?” She asked vibrantly. 

He closes it. Tony’s eyes peered around the room in the nooks and crannies. Not like he truly thought anything of the colors of mint on the walls and plethora of colors from objects everywhere such as her shelves and dresser. “Cute.”

“Thanks…?” She says slowly. “Just get to the point, I lose time as I die slowly through years, I wanna spend it well.” Sophia crossed her arms. 

He opened her closet doors opened to the spacious closet room-courtesy of Nove’s custom designed home idea. There in the middle simply laid a white full bodysuit. 

“You know, there’s too many disturbing things you’ll find in this closet to just barge through it like no one has personal space,” She points her finger upwards. Sophia internally swore to god he better not open the one drawer where some...inappropriate things laid used just last night and plenty of times before. Not that anyone knew about them.

Tony picked up the pitch white suit and poked around with it. “This is actually really impressive.” His voice was sincere. Nove was extremely talented in clothing design, as well as weaponry. He wouldn’t be surprised if Sophia was an absolute genius-scratch that-she was a genius, likely. You make it? Did your mom?”

“My mom and I both made it. It’s got magnetic attachment for the matching B-sticks, knife and gun compartments, anti-gravity climbers, identification panels-” She started proudly. 

“B-sticks?”

Sophia looks down. “Stands for bastard.”

“Why?”

She looked up and snorted. “Because it hurts like a frickin’ bastard,” She chuckles. 

Tony is only mildly humored by that. “But why are you doing...this, this whole hero thing?”

Sophia exhaled, leaning against a drawer. “It depends on if you are in that big of a search for the truth, Mr. Stark. It also depends on what exactly you’re looking for, because there is a ninety nine percent chance I’m not what you’re looking for just like the other seven billion people on this planet. I’m not too much more in that category.”

Tony put the suit down and just looked at the alabaster skinned redhead. What exactly could a likely genius fourteen-year-old be hiding?

“Tell me the truth then.”

She inhaled. “One, it’s to keep me safe. My mom is overprotective but claims the dad I have no idea who he is would be more overprotective which makes no sense. Two…” Sophia trails for a moment before her right hand fidgets. She stops fidgeting and brings her hand up. 

Fire. 

Tony stared in awe at the flame. A bright flame. Fire that could kill. 

“Also this, which is basically a repetitive of Wanda Maximoff-bless her heart over there about Lagos.” The flame fell and was replaced by glowing blue light. It was an aqua blue with a white center. 

Sophia let it dissipate within a nanosecond and she sighed. “An identity to protect that. A girl who can control fire? That’s dangerous. One power to make you think she doesn’t have another is a good idea to keep one thing that can tear the world from just not doing so.”

There was then an awkward pause between the two, Tony absorbing what she’d just said. 

“Oh, and it’s also just fun.”

Tony rolled his eyes. Of course it was.

Madison sighed, feeling like she screwed up. She exited her closet and plopped down on her bed. Tony then followed, sitting beside her before he put a hand on her shoulder. “You have a passport?”

“Yeah, why?”

“You ever been to Germany?”

“Germany for...what?”

“You’ll see when you get there.”

“Woah woah woah, hold up!” She exclaims. “As much as it would be fun to drop everything and go to Germany, I’d have to call school, make up my science test-”

“I’m just gonna pretend you didn’t say that.”

“Hey, I’m serious, my grades are important to a huge exte-”

Tony went towards the doorway. “I have to say, Sophia, I can’t really see you wanting to miss out on the chance of the lifetime-”

“I don’t even know what exactly you want me to do-Rogers-Is it Steve Rogers and all that shit, is that what I’m dealing with here?” She crosses her arms. 

Tony nods. “Yeah.”

Sophia inhales sharply. “Fine. He’s gonna get his ass kicked.”

“Good.” Tony then starts towards the stairs when he remembers something. “Do you have an alias?”

“Platinum.”

“Platinum?”

“Yeah, Platinum!” Sophia smiles. “It matches the suit-well, kinda, but I didn’t think White Queen would work.”

“White Queen could work.”

“Yeah, Mr. Stark, but I’ve been calling myself Platinum for too long to change it.”

Tony nods before changing the subject, his hand falling onto the wooden rail. “I’m gonna talk to your mom about it, see what she says about Germany. Not necessarily the whole Rogers part, but you know what I mean.”

“She’ll say no.”

“I have my ways,” He reassures before he goes down the stairs. People would not believe that he recruited a fourteen-year-old girl with fire powers and giant pain-causing sticks to bring in Rogers. But despite contrary thought, he actually had some faith in the girl. Sophia had a strong will, and at least had an idea of what she was going up against...He at least thought. 

Tony was met directly by Nove at the end of the stairs, whom’s arms were crossed. “September Foundation my ass, Tony, she would’ve told me.”

“Maybe not.”

She exhales. “Does this have to do with Steve Rogers?”

“Depends on how much of a truth you want, as your daughter so eloquently put it.”

Nove rolled her eyes. “I want the full truth and I don’t give a damn if it kills me.”

“Alright, fine, I came here knowing that your daughter could fight and I’m running out of options here against the rogue Avengers.”

“Dammit-Ton-”

“She’ll come back in one perfect piece, I promise.”

Nove’s alabaster face sterned. She took a step closer. “In one whole unharmed piece?”

“Yeah.”

“Swear on your life to me.”

“I swear on my life that I will bring your daughter home, Nove.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t think I can trust that!” She snaps. “With the whole Iron Man history since I last saw you in person, Tony, is making me think that she’ll get hurt even if it’s not your fault.”

“I don’t think Roger’s goal is to be killing a teenage girl!” He retorts.

“If it’s his life on the very line where he might as well deserve to die, then he’s probably going to try and kill her! She could kill him too, burn his whole body and make him wish he never existed, but he can hurt her too and the battlefield is unpredictable-especially because she’d be going up against some of the most dangerous people on Earth-”

“Nove, she has some of the most powerful people on Earth beside her, too. I won’t let her get hurt, and I absolutely will not let her get killed. I will bring her home in one whole piece.”

“You better if she even gets there in the first place.” She sighed, then, part of her deep inside thinking that she may not able to trust him completely. Not able to trust her own…

Nove didn’t finish that thought but  started towards the kitchen. “You want a drink, while you’re here? I thought we might catch up.”

Tony nodded, actually fine with the idea. It’s been a while since he’d since Nove, one of his old best friends. He went to MIT with her and spent some time with her in his twenties. She was an absolute genius, as well as a beautiful woman. He wasn’t surprised a single bit that Nove was as successful as she was. She was in a beautiful Orlando home with a seemingly well-raised daughter, a Maltese puppy (she’d always loved dogs), and Nove seemed quite content with her life. 

Nove pulled out a wine bottle, particularly of white wine. She pulled a wine glass out of her cabinet and set it on the counter. “There’s some whiskey, if you rather-”

“No, wine’s fine.” She handed him a glass. “Thank you.” She nodded. 

Tony exhaled. “Did you get married?”

Nove inhaled sharply. “No.”

Tony’s eyes creased slightly. “Was it a one-time thing?”

“About Sophia? No-well...yeah.”

“Oh.”

Nove finished a sip of wine. Her face contoured with nervousness. “Yep. One night fourteen years ago. I was drunk with a friend-”

“You? Drunk? Nuh-uh.”

“Yuh-huh. I had like five glasses of whiskey and...pop…” She trailed while looking to the side. “But hey, the dad told me respectively he did not want to be involved and I was just fine with that.”

“Who was he?” Tony said, then taking a sip. He re-adjusted in his seat. 

Nove sighed, standing a bit slumped and her eyes looking to the side. “You remember Jackson Winter, right?”

Tony blinked. “No...you didn’t.”

“You doubt me? Damn, Tony, that’s dangerous territory.”

Tony didn’t think of all people that she could have sex with, she’d do it with Jackson Winter. Jackson Winter...god. He wasn’t that truly bad, deep down, but the surface was even repulsive-though rarely...He still didn’t like the idea. 

“No. No you didn’t-I’ve figured out when you lie,” Tony denies her words.

“Really? You have, have you?” She sasses. “Tony, you don’t know everything about me that you think you do. Fourteen years, Tones, is quite the while.”

“Yeah, but my best friend couldn’t’ve been that drastic in changing. You didn’t change your hair.”

“I will kill anyone who tries.”

“You got a Maltese.”

“Yeah, because my daughter, when she was ten, really wanted one and they’re precious!”

“You made your own daughter a supersuit.”

Nove shrugged. “I’m like you, Tony, I need a project. Tinkering and making new little things is my thing. That, besides my dress shop and my real job.”

“What’s your job again?”

“I design custom homes in Orlando.”

“Must make millions a year. That’s great.”

Nove sipped her wine and swallowed. “It’s called a career, Tony, and it’s one I worked for. And you know what, Tony? I’m happy. My daughter is getting a wonderful education and she’s living a wonderful life, and that’s all I want. But here’s the thing, if you screw her life up, I might murder you in your skin.”

“Nice to know, dear.”

Nove pressed her hand against the marble countertop and a holographic info base popped up. She searched “Empress III” and up came the image of a white suit. The exact one Sophia had. 

“That the suit? Empress Three?”

“Yep. You can look and see if you have any modifications you wanna make if there’s time. You’ve had more time designing suits than I have, so if you have any ideas that can keep her safe…”

“Parachute.”

“Okay…”

“What about a heater?”

“I already have one of those installed. Dual ventilation and all.”

“Mask-”

“There’s an invis-mask setting that doubles as a screen. There’s even a bit vibranium sewn into the fabric.”

He raised his brows. Of course, the strongest substance on Earth. Nothing less for her baby. There was probably nothing that Nove wouldn’t do to protect Sophia. He didn’t find it abnormal a single bit. “And how much did that cost?”

“Enough. But it was an expense.”

Tony nodded and took a sip, once again. “Looks like you did a pretty good job on it, Nove. There’s no flaws I see right off the bat, but I’ll take an extra look at the specs if you send me the file. I can look at them on the way to Berlin.”

“And when does Sophia need to leave?” 

“Tomorrow, or even late tonight.”

Nove nods her head and actually gulps the last of the wine. She set down the glass. “I’d go with y’all, but I need to work on this one house with some people and then again, it’d be kinda awkward.”

“How so?” Tony asks. 

“Might seem like I’m coddling her. Not that Sophia dislikes me, at all. She’s not an anti-adult and anti-parent kid. I don’t know what the hell I’d do if she was. We’re close. I mean like, she’s never had a dad in the picture. Research shows that apparently a girl’s confidence is ninety percent from how her dad is in the whole grand scheme of a family. Sophia’s never had that,” She sighs. Nove swallowed, then. Every once in a while, it made her want to cry. She was a strong woman, though, and her daughter was brilliant and happy. Sophia was a pedestal containing light on it which would never fade. That’s simply what Nove believed. 

“Well at least she has the best mother in the world to guide her.”

Nove rolled her eyes in a playful manner. “You come here to flatter, Stark?”

“Maybe so, Nars,” Tony smirked. 

For some reason, Nove couldn’t help but laugh. The laugh that Tony saw was something...beautiful, dare he say it, that he hadn’t seen in fourteen years. 

“Oh yeah, Tony, there’s also one more thing. Follow me,” She says before putting down her drink and walking quickly to her bedroom and into her closet. 

“Why are we in your closet?” Tony asks when he catches up. 

Nove does not reply and instead goes to the far back and puts her handprint into the floor. She lifts up the bronze handle and ducks her head down, then to pull out a large silver object. 

Tony’s eyes grew when he realized what it was. 

The round shield was still silver and it was unpainted. It was the cleanest thing he’d ever seen, he was sure. 

Nove smirked. “I told you, Tony, that the vibranium came at an expense.”

 

“Berlin?” Amber asked loudly and confused over facetime.

Sophia snatched a light gray leather jacket from a hanger. “Yep, Amber, I’m heading to Berlin with Tony Stark. Isn’t that just...god, it’s the weirdest fricking thing in all of eternity. And god can send me to hell for saying this, but it’s actually to help with the rogue Avengers situation with Barnes and all.”

“Really?!” Amber piped. Her honey-caramel blonde locks bounced just barely.

“Yepper,” She replies before slipping on her jacket. “Too bad he doesn’t know about you, Amber, you’d be a pretty valuable asset to have fighting them. Electrocution is pretty damn painful. But, you know...I shouldn’t mention.”

Amber’s face had a mild rush of red to the cheeks. “Sophia, I’m just not youtube famous like you, what can I say. Just like I’m not rich or brilliant and such and such.”

“Jesus, you trying to guilt trip me? What you just stated you actually can’t blame me for.” Sophia turned off her tv and put the macbook on her nightstand to make her bed. “My mom made the choice to take the hard-working to rich path. Your dad decided to be a pretty good IT guy and your mom decided to work as an English teacher at school. That’s gotta be at least one-fifty a year in income. That’s not too bad when you stare into the eye of the pitiful national and local average.”

Amber shrugged, displacing her pure honey-caramel locks out of place. “True, but you’re still rich and brilliant.”

“Yeah but you’re damn smart too, Amber. Put your mind to it and invent something. Make a holographic smartwatch or some levitating mattress, I dunno, you’ve talked about that stuff before!”

Amber rolled her eyes. “I’m not a rocket scientist.”

Sophia put the last pillow down and grabbed her peony-scented room and fabric spray. “Yeah but here’s the thing, Amber: it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to do that shit, anyways.” She then sighed. “Look, I gotta go. Wish me luck.”

“You don’t need luck, you’re more brilliant than a thousand suns!”

“I can’t tell which type of brilliant you mean, but I’m going to take the smart one, and suns aren’t exactly smart-”

“Shut up, you little shit, the point is is that you’re smart and amazing and kill Rogers before he kills you and I love you.”

“Love you too. Bye.” Sophia shut the laptop and slid it into her suitcase. A smile still stuck on her face, though. God, she loved that loud goofball. 

With a certain sense of vibrance and chirpiness, Sophia went down the stairs with her one rose gold suitcase and quilted white leather purse. She still found it funny how Tony was still here just talking and laughing with her mother. Were they that good of friends that they could talk for that many hours? Something inside of her found it so odd. It was happy, though, to see her mom so talkative with people just besides clients-even if she enjoyed talking with them. There was rarely the time in the world to talk to some people, anymore. It was probably good that she had some hours to catch up and laugh. 

Nove’s head turned when she saw her daughter practically jump off of every step. “Also, Soph, I have something for you!”

Sophia’s brows furrowed as she watched her mom go into the kitchen. “What?”

“Let’s just say-” Nove calls as she grabs it and come back out into the living room space to where her daughter could see. “This is a gift for an occasion where you need it.”

Sophia’s jaw dropped and she literally started running down the stairs, even with the heaviness of the suitcase. “Holy shit, that’s a vibranium shield!”

“Language!” She reminded. “But yes, this is a vibranium shield just like Captain America’s...but better,” Nove adds in a mutter. 

Sophia took it, not exactly preferring it being handed to her. She struck a sideways pose with the shield. “I think it’s me.”

Nove nodded. “I think it is. Much better than Rogers.”

“Mmmmmmmm debatable. He did a good job with it before he threw it at the German police. But the difference, now, is that I don’t plan on throwing it at the police.” Sophia grabbed a giant elastic band and used it to trap the shield against the suitcase. “Voila.”

“Fantastic,” Tony says in purest sarcasm. “Okay, well it’s late so we should get going.” And with that, Sophia is about to bolt to the door when she remembers that a hug to her mom would probably be comforting. She hugged her quick and hugged her tight before she yanked out and bolted to the door. “I’ll be alive, I’ll be safe, and I’ll return with no critical injuries. Love you, Mom!” Sophia yells before the door closes. 

Nove deeply exhaled. “In one perfect piece.”

Tony walks to the door and turns his head. “In one perfect piece.” He opened the door. “It was great seeing you, Nove. If anything happens, I’ll tell you.” 

With that he was gone. 

Nove turned around and just took in the idea that it was just her and Skittles. The petite dog sat comfortably on the sofa before she perked her head up at her momma. 

Nove smiled and went to lie down. “Turn on the tv, Monday.” Skittles adjusted to her side, feeling comfort once again. “Put on House Of Cards.” 

At that moment, she slowly learned to think that Tony could take care of her. 

It would hurt her too badly to think otherwise.


	2. Chapter 2

“BerlinBerlinBerlinBerlinBerlinBlernBrbren-”

“Kid, it’s just Berlin! Well, technically Leipzig, eventually, but-” Tony attempts before he gets into the front seat.

“Yeah but I’ve never been to Berlin! I’ve been to other countries of interest, but just not Berlin-well, Germany, I mean. Berlin isn't a country.”

Tony was mildly entertained while Happy was just not phased. Happy was not exactly a person to deal with children-and he didn’t really like kids that much either. So that made the long drive to the hangar extra difficult for the driver, who put the divider up five minutes in.

Thankfully, for both Happy and Tony, she didn’t blow up in excitement about the jet. She was pretty chilled out about the jet-Sophia was not that mesmerized by everyday things. She wasn’t boxed into her house twenty-four-seven. Her mom didn’t raise her to be that kid who just didn’t know what this and that was.

The whole jet ride she sat listening to music, not pulling her Bose headphones off her ears once. The booming of music kept on as she either texted Amber or read a book she brought. She wouldn’t’ve been able to go the whole flight without reading. The book was too good of a story to miss out for a few days.

By the time they arrived in Germany, her eyes had fallen closed. She was still awake...barely. Also with her headphones on playing a loud remake.

“You awake, kid?”

Her eyes flew open. “Mhm,” She sounded, looking at Mr. Stark’s face.

“Well, we just landed so we’re heading to the hotel,” Sophia made out his words, not wanting to pull off her headphones.

“Oh, we’re here?” She exclaims, pulling them off. Her eyes looked out of the window to the white-clouded day. “I’m in Germany, then.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “And I still recruited a fourteen-year-old kid to fight other Avengers. C’mon, we got stuff to do.”

She stood up, stretching mid-sentence with her arms nearly touching the ceiling. “Other stuff besides confronting them? By the way, where are they now?”

“That’s what we’re gonna find out. ‘Mon.’,” He urged.

Her arms flopped to grab her purse, then heading to the front with the billionaire. From there, for the fourteen-year-old, everything went as simply to-car-to-road-to-hotel. She had her own room where she then showered to, of course, the sound of music from an in-shower mini speaker. There, she quickly washed and dried off, proceeding to throw on pajamas and plop on her bed all for a peaceful ten seconds before there was a knock at her door.

“Hey kid!”

Sophia’s eyes rolled nearly to the back of her head, only getting ten seconds of comfort on her temporary bed. The knocking continued until she opened the door wide open to reveal Happy standing there.

“Yeah?” She asked, obviously annoyed.

“Where’s your suit?”

“Oh, y’all already found them? Could’ve told me that before the shower made me a bit sleepy!”

“Where is it!” He snapped.

Sophia walked over to a chair and swiped the silver case up.

“Perfect. Put it on and let’s go.”

“Where?”

“Leipzig.”

“Leipzig?! That’s like two hours away!” She nearly yells.

“That’s why we’re going now-put it on and let’s go!”

Sophia takes the case into the bathroom, still steamy bathroom. She yanked off her pajamas and started to pull on the suit. It was slimming, and slightly snug. Sophia finished and looked at herself in the mirror. Two paper-thin blue lines outlined her hourglass-body. In reality, though, it was a plump and pudgy hourglass that she had not really ever kept being thin since she was seven. The zipper was fully zipped up right below her neck invisibly, and her shield was now hidden behind her hair, the bottom half sticking out.

“I hope that it won’t go through their minds that I’m fat or a size twelve.”

“Let’s go!”

“Jesus, I’m coming!” She calls back. Her hand scrambled for her mascara, keeping calm enough to apply it on her lashes slowly, even though she needed to hurry. Sophia dropped it on the counter and swiped up a lip balm, ready to apply it on the way to the car.

She opened the door up and walked out before Happy could scold her for being slow.

 

Sophia made herself breathe in and out calmly. Every move had to be right. Every move had to inflict damage. Not like she couldn’t...But she had a reason for being here, and she needed to keep that in her head.

She watched the conversation closely between the two leading members of the Avengers. Not that Stark was active in Lagos or active missions since Ultron, but he would’ve been smart enough to somehow make sure that a member didn’t blow up the side of a civilian building and kill twelve people.

Her breathing at the slow pace continued. In and out went calmly, and her eyes were firm on the scene…

In…

Out…

In…

“White Death!”

For a nano-second, she had no idea where that nickname came from, especially since she’d never killed anyone. Regardless, she shot her anti-gravity climbers, thrusting her body forwards. A second after that during mid-flight, she uses the climbers to grab Steve Rogers by the neck and thrust him to the ground. In the process, she swiped his shield, now having the possession of two vibranium weapons: one on her back and one in hand. His groan of pain definitely showed how hard she threw him. He couldn’t even physically retaliate with his shield.

“Nice job, kid.”

Her smile was mild. “Thanks. Although why White Death?”

“Uh-”

“Like, white was right, but I’ve never like killed anyone. I could easily, but you know, I’d get arrested _ - _ ” Her pitch rises at the end of the word.

“Yeah, we don’t need to start a conversation.”

Sophia shuts her mouth, watching Steve get up from the concrete. She could see him squint his eyes in confusion. “Aren’t you a little young to be on the battlefield?”

She tilted her head to the left a bit. “Aren’t you a little old to be alive?”

“Oh, he’s dead,” Tony states. “No, no, no, I’m serious, I think she just impaled him with, like, a giant knife. Party’s over, folks, everyone can go home!”

Steve huffs out. “You’ve been busy.”

“And you’ve been a complete idiot,” Tony turns his head to attack Steve in words. “Dragging in Clint. Rescuing Wanda from a place she doesn’t even want to leave-a safe place. I’m trying to keep-...I’m trying to keep you from tearing the Avengers apart.”

“You did that when you signed.”

Sophia blinked and mouthed “bullshit”.

“All right, we’re done. You’re gonna turn Barnes over, you’re gonna come with us now because it’s us! Or a squad of J-SOC guys with no compunction with being impolite.”

Steve just looked to the side while Sophia silently wanted to take him out and take care of the issue.

“Come on.”

Steve looked back forwards with no intention of doing so.

Sophia felt the presence of something coming behind her. She turned around and ducked downwards. She guessed Hawkeye was around.

“Really-you shoot at the damn teenager?!” She exclaims. But she wasn’t prepared for something to pop up from thin air. Sophia threw the shield at that moment, but she was still flipped onto a small vehicle. Her back felt a short jolt of pain, but she quickly recovered to her feet. “Okay, then, I guess I won’t be friendly. Not that I was planning to be, it’s just confirmation.”

“Oh great. Alright, there’s two on the parking deck. One of them’s Maximoff, I’m gonna grab her. Soph, Rhodey, you wanna take Cap?”

Sophia nodded while the colonel reported where Sam Wilson and James Barnes were.

“Barnes is mine!” The man in a black catsuit exclaims while he goes into a run. She recognized his voice…

“Was that the prince of Wakanda?” She mutters.

…

“Oh, that was.”

Steve threw his shield at Rhodes, but Sophia started to retaliate by clipping her climbers against her arms, letting them become one with the suit skin. “Okay, I have many ways to kill or hurt a man, so we’ll just stick with these, so far, I think,” She says, her eyes shooting at the Captain. She pulls two sticks off her hips-just the size of flashlights. However, the press of a button makes them feet long, sticking up in the air and only a few feet from the concrete. “Still pretty painful, though.”

Steve, though, had started running, and T’Challa started running after him.

Her lips flattened. Change of plans. She shrunk them and switched them out with her climbers, using them to drag her up into the air until she reached the terminal where Barnes and Wilson were running.

“Don’t crash, don’t crash-”

She crashed through the window, glass spewing everywhere, giving her a minute cut right under her scalp line.

“Annnndddd I crashed through the window.” She stood upright, looking to see the duo sprinting.

“Goddammit, I’m a terrible runner.” But she starts anyways, not getting significantly closer, but then she jumps, her boots spawning blue transparent light floors, them popping up and disappearing as she ran.

“What the hell is that?” She hears Barnes ask.

“Everybody’s gotta gimmick, now,” Wilson grunts.

Sophia stops platform-running and tackles Sam Wilson to the ground, then using a now-lengthy b-stick to horizontally hit him in the neck. Barnes stopped her, though, with his metal arm.

“You realize you’re evading a chance of getting proper mental help with the Winter Soldier, right, Mr. Barnes?” She says.

Before he could even try to reply if he wanted to, Sam drags her into the air. She doesn’t even bother to fight him with weapons, she holds her stick with one hand and used the other to punch him right in his brow bone, his reaction giving her the chance to wriggle free and land smack down on the ground.

“Ow, my boobs!”

She jerked her head up and used a climber to drag him to the ground, him feeling the same fate she had to, but much harder.

Sophia burst up from the ground and ran with one stick and one climber in her left hand. The climber pressed him down, then jumping to initiate platform-running. She stopped right over his back, about to punch him, but Barnes stopped her by attempting to punch her. She easily dodged, grabbing his metal arm and using it against his face. She knocked him, then, to the ground, but Wilson attempted to assault her. Sophia burst up and fought them both back via climber against Barnes and her b-stick against Wilson. She platformed above a balcony into the air, then using a second platform to plaster them to the ground.

“Well, this has been fun, guys, but you, Wilson, are going to prison while you, Barnes, hopefully, gets mental assistance with the Winter Soldier. These gentlemen, are the consequences of fighting. Sorrrryyyyyyy,” She stretches the word with her teeth out and bright.

Out of nowhere, though, a device drags her out of a glass window. Quickly, she hits the concrete, groaning at the impact. It takes a moment, but she gets up.

“Screw them,” Sophia mutters.

Her head turns to the scene of a flipped and burning truck. No idea which idiot did that, but it was pretty idiotic, in her view.

She platformed over to the scene, landing near Tony and Natasha Romanoff being helped up by him.

“Is this apart of the plan?” The assassin asks.

“Well my plan was to go easy on them, you wanna switch it up?”

Sophia slowly nodded, walking over. “If you really want to catch them, then yeah.”

Natasha looked at her. “ _ This _ was your idea, Tony?”

“You can’t blame me too much, he brought me here, not me,” She put her hands up. They fell down, though, as every head turned to see Vision laser a line into the ground against Cap’s team.

They immediately rushed to the scene, Sophia jumping a foot in the air to start platforming until she reached Vision. She gracefully stepped off the last platform, now having both b-sticks in hand.

“-You must surrender now,” Vision finishes.

Soon, T’challa and Rhodey came and Vision landed. It was a literal line against a line. In her line, Sophia stood boldly as she could. She rolled her teeth against her bottom lip and sharply inhaled. Her chest ached a bit, and her feet were very sore, but she tried her best to still keep functioning. She’d done a lot, so far. Good work could propel her even more.

“What do we do, Cap?” She watched Sam Wilson ask.

“We fight,” He answers, and the line starts towards them.

“This is gonna end well,” Natasha says besides her as they, too, start walking. Cap and co start to jog, so then does their side.

“They’re not stopping,” Sophia states.

“Neither are we,” Tony replies.

They were now sprinting and flying, about to collide. Sophia knew that the results in a collision wouldn’t be good.

She was right.

Initially, she started to fire her climbers at Wanda, who shot back at her with flames of red energy. These, she easily dodged. Sophia then proceeded to throw one knife at her, hoping a mild to moderate injury would slow her down. It ended up working, because that knife reached her lower thigh, making her cry out in pain.

Sophia didn’t bother running at her as she collapsed to the ground. Wanda Maximoff was well down, and there was nothing else to do.

She swept around and saw Clint Barton fighting Natasha. He was instantly the next target. She, for the first time, shrunk and attached her sticks to her suit, and pulled her shield out, throwing it at him with a targeting for his neck. When it hit, he hit the ground just as hard as she anticipated: hard as stone.

Natasha stared at Sophia, completely stunned, as the shield came batch to attach to her wrist.

“How old are you again?”

“Fourteen,” She replied. But their interactions didn’t go any further than that, for Sam Wilson was her next target, seeing that he was a few hundred feet away in the air being chased by Tony.

She jumped and started to platform higher and higher into the air. Sophia barely acknowledged how high up she was getting. She eventually stopped at a certain height and just went forwards, throwing the shield at him. It dented his wing pack and knocked him out of the sky. She jumped downwards until she reached the ground, making sure he was down for sure.

“Stark, Maximoff, Wilson, and Barton are down. Where’s that other guy?”

“Wow, um-” Tony starts, impressed that three of them are down. “Which other guy?”

“Ant guy, guy who popped out of nowhere from Cap’s shield earlier.”

“I don’t know…” Tony looks around. An arrow is then shot at him, but Tony blasts it into smithereens.

“Guess Barton’s not down, nevermind, nevermind, I’ll take care of him!”

Sophia swipes around and sees Barton dashing behind a crate. She runs after him, pulling out a knife. Sophia slams him against the ground and horizontally plunges the knife in his arm.

He yells in pain from the sudden attack. God, he didn’t even know who this person was.

“He’s taken care of now, it’s fine! Where’s Ant guy?” She asks as she gets up and runs away from the knife-inflicted archer.

“They what?” Tony asks.

“What, what’s wrong? Stark?”

“Who’s speaking?”

“What do you mean, it’s Sophia! Is something in your suit?!”

“Friday?”

“Stark, did that ant guy get in your suit?!”

“Yeah, kid, I think so!”

Sophia turns and looks around again. “Any idea where he is?”

“No, no idea.”

Her eyes scanned all over. But then something….extremely unexpected occurred.

The guy who she was absolutely positive was the size of an ant...was now a monstrous giant who had grabbed Rhodes.

“You’re fricking kidding me,” Sophia blurted loudly, looking up.

“Give me back my Rhodey,” Stark says. Eventually, he wriggled free of his control.

She tilted her head. “Okay...I know an easy way to do this one, actually. Rhodes, Stark, start circling him.”

“Um, why?” The colonel asked.

“Just do it, I actually have a plan!”

“What kind of plan!”

“A plan that will need you up there while I start knocking him down from below. Basically, just keep punching him in the top half and I have him from the bottom. Remember, Stark, when I showed you the blue energy?”

“You’re gonna knock him down with that?”

Sophia nodded and started running. “Easy plan, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, if it works!” Rhodes commented.

“It will, Colonel. It will,” She breathes out when she stopped. Sophia looked up, yanking her gloves off and stuffing it under her neckline. She had nowhere else to put them, so the safest place would definitely be her chest. It left a thin and odd bulge, but she didn’t care. The aqua-blue energy started rising into the air in mass quantities, rising and circling him. It nearly looked like water, in a mild way, drowning his legs and his waist and working its way up.

She grunted. It was taking a lot of willpower, but she was doing it. “Stark, Rhodes, get up there!”

“Jesus, Tony, how old is this kid?!” Rhodes asks.

“She’s fourteen, but we have three people down, let’s just see where she’s going with this!”

Sophia huffs out and keeps pushing the energy up and up all the way to his neck. At this point, she was starting to strain and yell, thinking she’d fall to her knees.

“KNOCK HIM DOWN, NOW!” Sophia yells. Surprisingly, they do. They knock him down right in the head. She releases at the same second he topples over. Sophia falls to her knees and hands. She gasps and huffs multiple times before she eventually gets up within ten seconds. Her eyes scan out anyone she needs to confront.

No one.

She laughs to herself with a grin. “Shit, I did it...Oh shit…”

The moment of relief didn’t last long, though. Her eyes caught the sight of Barnes and Rogers running towards the hangar.

Sophia cursed under her breath and started platforming towards the duo sprinting on concrete. They started to speed up, though, the rubble of concrete starting to fall over the hangar entrance. With that, she started to speed up, too, but she was sure she wouldn’t make it.

She sharply inhaled. Sophia swiped her shield and threw it as hard as she could at Rogers. If it wasn’t for his speed, she would’ve nailed him in the head. But no. It wedged itself in the rubble as the two made it.

“Damn it!” She swears into the air. Sophia platforms to the ground. She missed them. She got everyone except who truly mattered.

At the sound of a landing behind her, Sophia turned around to see Tony lift his mask. “You okay, kid?”

Sophia sharply inhales. “I didn’t get them...Sorry.”

“Yeah, well, you took down three of the most dangerous people on the planet, I don’t think you need to be sorry.”

She exhaled. “So they’ll be going to prison?”

“Yep. We need to get Barnes and Rogers, though.”

“Right…” She nods.

Tony exhaled and walks closer to her. “Look, kid, if you like, you can go home now. You did a really good job-”

“No. I’ll get them. I’ll get them both. I’m happy to help.”

Sophia breathes out again.

“I think I did a good job though,” She says as the corners of her lips curled.

“-Target his thruster, turn him into a glider,” She heard over the comm.

Sophia turned head and eyes to the scene above. Vision shot a laser into the air at Sam, who was somehow in hell still active and flying, but he dodged it.

It hit Rhodes.

“Oh shit,” Her eyes grew. Sophia immediately broke into platforming, and her mind went into a panic. He could die by the impact, even with that strong of a suit.

Tony shut his mask and flew into the air immediately in an attempt to save Rhodes.

“No, no, no, no, no…” She muttered.

She started to platform downwards, and Sophia spawned out a pool of blue energy.

He fell right through to the green ground.

“NO!”

She continued her platforming down to the ground where she met Tony. He ripped off the mask and asked for his heart rate. Thankfully, he was alive, but faintly.

Sophia couldn’t stand it. She couldn’t stand it at all. The tears came to her eyes quickly. She could’ve saved him...Except she didn’t.

Sam landed feet away, and she looked up in teary madness.

“I’m sorry.”

Tony shot him down to the ground, Vision then landing. All while Sophia bit her lip and the tears pooled in her eyes.

She may have taken some down, but she didn’t save anyone.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 45 hits. I can't complain, I'm very new, so of course, my writing is not gonna go become a fandom-famed fic. All good things take time. XD  
> I do appreciate every view, however. Keep it up! Also, that one dear guest who gave me a kudos. *Heart eyes*  
> Anyways, please comment(have I mentioned I love comments???) and give kudos if you like it! Thank yall so much!!!

Her eyes stared out into the world of gray over the ocean. It was dark and bitter and hollow. She’d never felt that, but she saw it. 

Rhodes was okay...relatively. He was being treated at the hospital. He was said to have paralysis from his waist under. He would never be able to walk normally, again. Tony said that he could help him, though, with tech aids. Still, the only thing that ran through her head in regards to it was that she should’ve saved him. 

Sophia and Tony visited the RAFT where Clint, Wanda, Scott, and Sam were prisoners. Sophia kept, for the most part, a stern face. She kept a stern face when Clint remarked over her recruitment. She responded in attacking about how he left his family for this fight. That was all she said to him as Tony went to find information from Sam. 

They now sat in the helicopter, Sophia staring into the darkness. She found the will to look over to Tony. He broke his arm in the fight, it now in a sling. He was contemplating, obviously. She knew when someone was thinking. Her mom did it constantly. 

“What’re you thinking?” Sophia asks quietly. 

“Press the button on the side of your seat.”

“Why?”

“Because we’re not staying in this helicopter.” He pressed a button beside his seat and it reclined and brought him backward.

“Mr. Stark?!” She exclaimed. She pressed hers and the same thing happened. Sophia quickly realized she was being put in a suit. Tony’s suit.

“I DON’T KNOW HOW TO FLY THESE!” Sophia yells. 

“Geez, calm down, Friday will fly it. Friday, have her suit follow me.”

Sophia could now feel the suit thrusting her at incredibly fast speeds through the air. At the realization of that she was safe, she started to laugh. She could fly. 

At the same moment he heard the girl laugh, he remembered something. Tony remembered when he first could fly in his suit. He remembered flying over Malibu with his the second model he ever made. It flew and flew and flew until, of course, the suit froze at a high height and he fell into his garage. It had been wonderful, though. It had been so wonderful. 

It seemed to him that Sophia felt the same. 

It didn’t take much longer than twenty minutes to get there. The two landed in the Siberian snow. Sophia got out of her suit though. She didn’t want to leave the bulkiness on. 

Tony took off his mask. “You sure you don’t want that?”

“I’m fine. Besides, what if it gets damaged?” Sophia says, pulling her forgotten gloves out. 

Tony blinks at her. “Did you seriously just hide your gloves in your bra?”

“What? No! ...Shut up.”

Tony nearly snickered but chose against the idea. The duo, in peace, headed inside the bunker where they believed Steve and Barnes to be by the Quinjet already being there. 

Sophia, by now, had her gloves on and was thinking she’d use her sticks most. Her knives were left behind, and using her climbers would be probably useless, so her b-sticks were her best bet, as well as her energy. She wouldn’t use fire because she was too afraid to burn the bunker down and kill everyone. She wouldn’t do it. 

They came up to a wall with a line in the middle. Tony pried it open just to find Rogers and Barnes on the other side. 

“You seem a little defensive,” Tony comments. 

“It’s been a long day,” Steve replies. 

“At ease, soldier, we’re not currently after you!”

“Then why are you here? Especially her!”

Sophia rolled her eyes. Because she was hard-ass powerful, but not like she’d say that at this very moment. 

“Could be your story’s not so crazy. Maybe. Ross has no idea I’m here, I’d like to keep it that way. Otherwise, I gotta arrest myself.”

“Well, that sounds like a lotta paperwork.”

Tony scoffed at that remark. Meanwhile, Sophia took in her surroundings. It took Steve’s eyes to her. “Why is she here?”

Sophia turned her head to him. “I am assisting Mr. Stark with the whole doctor situation if it’s oh so scandalous. Please, I’m sure it makes much more of a story versus a world superhero associating with what the press likes to call a terrorist. He is, of course, when Hydra wants him to be. Technically, you should be getting mental treatment instead of prison-and it’s a wide open possibility, Mr. Barnes.”

There was no response to the fourteen-year-old. Just stern looks from the two men in front of her. 

“Hey, Manchurian Candidate-” Tony starts at Barnes who still pointed his machine gun. There’s a truce here, you can drop-”

Rogers signals that he can put it down and he does. 

The quartet started down a few halls and turns until they reached one entrance where Rogers asked for heat signatures. Tony reported only one.

Sophia looked around in awe. There were bodies in yellow cryo tanks and little light. It felt cold-bitterly cold, so she turned on her heater behind the shield. The warmth went around her body, causing her to exhale. 

“If it’s any comfort,” An accented voice startles Sophia, making her eyes grow and her legs freeze. “They died in their sleep.”

She turned her head. 

“Did you really think I wanted more of you?”

Barnes muttered a curse.

“I’m grateful to them, though. They brought you here.”

A light turned on in the corner. Rogers threw his shield at the glass. 

“Please, Captain,” The voice started. It sounded Eastern European, but she couldn’t peg a certain country for the accent. There were many different countries. Estonia, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia...Sokovia…

“The Soviets built this chamber to withstand the launch blast of UR-100 rockets.”

“I’m betting I could beat that!” Tony claimed. Sophia internally agreed. 

“Oh I’m sure you could, Mr. Stark. Given time. But then you’d never know why you came.”

Steve started over. “You killed innocent people in Vienna just to bring us here?”

Sophia rolled her eyes, thinking,”You killed innocent police officers in Germany just to get me involved?” She kept her mouth shut, though. She knew it was for the best. 

“I’ve thought about nothing else for over a year. I studied you. I followed you. But now that you’re standing here I just realized...there’s a bit of green in the blue of your eyes. How nice to find a flaw.”

"Eye colors are suddenly a flaw like a skin tone to some dumb people. Lovely," Sophia mutters.

“You’re Sokovian,” He deadpans. Sophia was correct about her Eastern European assumption. 

“Is this what this is about?” Rogers continues. 

“Sokovia was a failed state long before you blew it to hell. No. I’m here because I made a promise.”

“You lost someone.”

The man clicked his tongue. “I lost everyone.”

Something about those words gave her a chill down Sophia’s spine. Sophia continued to observe, though. She observed closely and carefully. 

“And so will you.”

A screen turned on to the behind-right of Rogers. Sophia saw it, recognizing it to be Russian. She both was semi-fluent in Russian, but could also tell about how obvious the date was in relation to English. It was December 16th, 1991...Wait, she knew that date…

Oh.

That was when Howard and Maria Stark died.

Sophia swallowed. This wasn’t going to go well. 

“An empire toppled by its enemies can rise again. But one which crumbles from within? That’s dead. Forever.”

Both Tony and Sophia went over to the outdated screen, both in a distinguishable mixture of curiosity and concern. 

“I know that road,” Tony says. He looked up at the man. “What is this?” He calls. The man, however, has no response. 

Tony looked down, as well as Sophia, and started to watch the tape. Slowly, but surely, it came together to why this video was so important. She saw a car crash and a motorcycle come up behind it to park. The man on it beat the driver of the car...It was Howard Stark. 

Sophia, for a moment, looked at his face. There was no way you could label his face. All Sophia could think was that you’d have to exaggerate the word “pained” a million times. 

But then the video said the name “Sergeant Barnes?”

Sophia looked up in horror. Her head shook centimeters slowly. “You did not…” She whispered in Barnes direction. 

Tony and Sophia looked back to see Howard get punched and put back into the front seat, now dead. Barnes went to the other side and started to choke Maria Stark. 

That was when Tony’s face pained by a million more exaggerations. 

Sophia’s lip had dropped, and she could feel her heartbeat more visibly. He’d killed them, he’d killed them…

Tony was about to burst out, but Steve had to stop him. “Tony, Tony…”

Tony looked down but then back to Steve. “Did you know?” He whispered. 

At that moment, Sophia knew he was the epitome of strained trauma. She just knew. 

“I didn’t know it was him.”

“Don’t bull _ shit _ me, Rogers, did you know?”

Steve’s face sterned. “Yes.”

Tony pulled away. Sophia could obviously see what was going to come, and it wasn’t pretty. She grasped for her b-sticks, sharply inhaling.

Tony punched him in the face.  

Sophia’s heart dropped so fast she didn’t even take it in. 

Fighting was hard. This, especially. It was more compact, and it was less secure. For the most part, she knew she would try her best to elude every punch. 

“Sophia, get out of here!” Tony demanded. 

“I’m not just going to leave you here!” She says back.

“Just go!” He snaps. 

She doesn’t do that. Instead, she stood back with no idea what to do. Sophia stood in actual mortification of what she could do wrong. She could get hurt, Tony could get hurt...She didn’t know. 

She turned at the voices. 

“-Hydra had control of his mind.”

“Move.”

“It wasn’t him!”

Within a few seconds, Barnes was trying to get out via roof which Sophia discovered could open up. She shot a climber at Barnes, but with no luck. She could only watch from below, afraid to do something, but petrified to do nothing. 

Tony fell and she yelled his name. That was it for her. She platformed higher and higher so she could reach Barnes, but then started going down back when the roof closed again.  

She was crashed into. She fell with everyone to the concrete, Sophia receiving another temple gash and more bruises. 

Sophia found herself on her knees, first, while Steve and Tony stood with only feet between them. “This isn’t gonna change what happened, Tony.”

“I don’t care...He killed my mom.”

The fight continued. This time, she didn’t back down. Sophia just burst into the brawl with her fists at hand, being attacked by Steve and defended by Tony. Eventually, Barnes came into the mix and it became a crazy mess. It caused her to lose both her breath and balance, getting knocked to the side along with Steve. Barnes slammed Tony against the concrete wall. Sophia could only get onto the balance of her elbows and slightly her knees. Her lip was plump with blood in the corners, tears in her eyes, and bruises on her body and soul. Her breath trembled out as she heard Bucky yell and then Tony’s arc reactor shoot his arm off. She watched him be left shook by the loss and Tony and Steve brawl once again.

Her face and body fall to the freezing concrete. She couldn’t do it, she couldn’t do it, she couldn’t do it…

Sophia snapped awake from her daze and jerked her head up. She didn’t know how long it’d been, but apparently long enough for Steve about to jab his shield into Tony’s reactor. 

Sophia wouldn’t.

She regained as much as strong as she could and used it to tackle Steve. She punched him and punched him before she snatched the glove off of her right hand and smacked it against his left jawbone.

Steve yelled. He’d been burned.

Sophia gasped and collapsed backward in shock of what she just did. Her back nearly fully touched the ground, and her knees were up as well as her elbows. She then gave out to the ground, not caring anymore about what the burn on his jaw looked like. 

The tears fell out. Sophia didn’t ask for this. She wanted to do it, but all it brought her was pain. She wasn’t surprised...But she underestimated everything.

Absolutely everything. 

“That shield doesn’t belong to you. You don’t deserve it. My father made that shield!”

Steve dropped it. 

They walked away, leaving Tony and Sophia to suffer in the cold and in the pain. They never looked back and they never showed any last second mercy.

Tony looked over to Sophia, his eyes growing. “Sophia, are you hurt?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think I can stand...G-god,” She gasped at the end, throwing her hands over her face. “Goddammit,” She cried.

Tony suddenly found his pain not worthy of caring about. His only concern was Sophia, who was sobbing and in the cold. “Sophia-”

“I make such fucking bad choices,” She whispered into her hands. 

“Sophia, look at me.”

Sophia looked up, her whole face red and puffy with tears. Tony never thought he could be so pained with one crying face. 

“We’re gonna get out of here. You hear me? We will get out of here, I promise you, honey!”

Sophia nodded. “I can’t fucking stand, though. Just give me a minute,” She, once again, whispered. 

Sophia’s full body fell to the concrete. Maybe the cold should take her. Maybe the pain. Maybe something else. Something that wasn’t Rogers or Barnes. She eluded the chance of dying by their hand. It was good. 

But with a scintilla of good brought a hell’s world of hell. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here are a few short warnings just cause warnnninngggs:   
> mention of sex toy, mention of virginity, implied underage thigh-riding

Nove slammed the door on him. 

Tony sighed. He 100% deserved it, though. 

He started to walk back to his car when five seconds later, Nove opened the door. Tony turned around and ended up inside the Nars household, once again. Except for this time, he truly didn’t know what exactly to expect. 

He saw Sophia and a slightly shorter blonde go upstairs together in silence with her luggage. The guilt instantly increased. He should’ve never been so desperate. He should’ve made her go home-he should’ve never found her in the first place. 

Nove stood in pajama pants and a hoodie, looking a bit like she had cried earlier. “What happened over there?” She whispered. 

“...Nove-”

“What happened to my baby, Tony? ...What happened?” She whispered again. 

“I screwed up, Nove. I should’ve sent her home after Leipzig.”

“And she went with you to Siberia where she was in the cold shaking? Both of you cold, broken, and shaking?” Her voice regained some strength. Nove walked and stopped right in front of him. “What happened, Tony?”

Tony took a breath. “I found out the truth about my parents.”

Nove’s eyes grew. “What do you mean?”

“Well as it turns out, Rogers knew that the Winter Soldier killed my parents, and never told me. So I freaked out and...he dragged my ass and left us there.”

Nove could barely comprehend what she was hearing. They had been best friends since college, knowing about his parents pretty well. And now that she knew about what exactly happened? ...She didn’t know what to think or say. Especially since her daughter was involved-her own daughter had possibly seen the footage of a death as gruesome as theirs?

Nove’s head fell down and she closed her eyes. “God, Tony…” She whispered. “I don’t know what I should do.”

“You don’t need to do anything.”

“But shouldn’t I?” The redhead asks, lifting her head back up. “I don’t know what my daughter saw back there-or even what exactly my best friend saw! I don’t know what the hell happened or I trusted so easily-and you’d always been the only person I’ve ever trusted!” Her voice raised. 

Tony had a slight freeze at what she said. Out of seven billion people, he was the most trustworthy to her? How?

Nove took in a massive breath. As if years didn’t exist and there were none between the two, she hugged him tightly as if they were still in college. 

Tony took a second to absorb this, but it flooded his head quickly. The last time she hugged him it had felt warm, it felt comforting…

It had felt like home. 

It felt like home more than anything or anyone else. 

 

“So what exactly happened if you don’t mind me asking?” Amber asked softly as she lit a mango-scented candle on her best friend’s dresser. 

Sophia lied on her bed flat with her head to the ceiling. “I, along with Tony Stark, now know what exactly killed Howard and Maria Stark in 1991 as well as the type of man Steve Rogers is.”

“And what type is that?” She says as she puts down the lighter on the white wood. 

“Pathetic,” She nearly spat. 

Amber looked to the bathroom. “You wanna shower? Siberia is pretty cold, you’ll want a really good warm up.”

Sophia pushes herself up. “Yeah. A good shower would be nice.” The redhead walked to the bathroom and turned on the shower, all while keeping the door open. She turned back to look at Amber. “What, you thought I’d just make you wait out here?”

Amber froze and actually has a pink tint rush to her cheeks. “Thought you wanted your privacy.”

“Honey, I willingly gave up my privacy a very long time ago.”

Amber shook her head and walked inside the increasingly warming room, closing the door behind her. The duo started to undress, but Amber’s vibrantly cognac eyes didn’t keep to herself. Her alabaster body was beautiful, she wouldn’t deny it. 

And then Sophia pulled her sports bra off. 

Amber swore that God above sent Sophia her breasts. They were a solid 32 C, now hanging as the redhead pulled off her underwear. She honestly had to hold her breath. 

Sophia’s eyes flash to her. “Oggling, much?”

Amber snapped her eyes to her own business. That wasn’t a good move concerning last month.

“That wasn’t being judgemental, that was being observant. But I’m not exactly the person to oggle. Magazines have never liked stretch marks, protruding stomachs, or pudgy thighs.”

“But you’re stunning!” Amber blurts. 

Sophia tied her hair into a bun. “And that definitely kept our relationship together, right? Not that that was a meaningful comment, I’m just snarky.” She stepped into the shower. 

Amber felt like dying inside because she found Sophia so much different from what she thought. It came back to bite her, though, and it wasn’t even completely her fault.

Sophia popped something off the wall. “We won’t be needing that-and don’t touch it, either, it’s suffered a sad history.” She threw it to the back of the oversized marble shower and let it land in a corner. 

“Was that a vibrator?”

“...No...I’m not that lonely…” Sophia lied. She grabbed her Dove body wash and loofah, squirting a dollop on the loofah. “Not that I’m not a virgin, either-that currently is a privacy I won’t give up due to consequences-”

“So you’re saying you wouldn’t mind losing your virginity?”

“Shut up!” She playfully snaps. Some sunlight shines into the squared skylight above her, illuminating her creamy shoulders and face.

Amber needed to hide how mesmerized she was, so she started to use her best friend’s face wash to wash her own oat-toned skin. But she couldn’t stop looking at her, not for one second, could she? It was so bad that she got a bit of the face wash in her eyes, making the redhead now slathering on shaving cream and shaving grimace until it stopped. 

Amber’s now mildly-red eyes looked back at her best friend grabbing her bottle of Nivea in-shower moisturizer. “You okay there, Amber?”

Amber nodded and in carefulness proceeded to wash her own body with the second loofah in the shower, all while her head flooded with the thoughts of Sophia. There was something in the way she moved, the way she talked, the way she smiled and laughed that would always have her hypnotized. 

Loving her as a friend since age four, but hypnotized by her since she was thirteen. 

But the flat-out representation of it ended two months ago. 

At midnight, Amber let out her soul and told her best friend of ten years that she loved her. Apparently, she reciprocated and it became a relationship of kissing, holding hands, and hugs. But it ended after two months, and she still couldn’t comprehend everything. 

Sophia breathed in. “You know what? I’m sorry, I’m making you think about stuff, I really shouldn’t have invited you in here.” The sincerity in her voice hurt, but the lack of it would hurt more. 

“No, it’s fine, we did this before all of that…We’re fine, Soph.”

Sophia knew all too well that they were not fine, though. 

 

Sophia, now dressed in a Calvin Klein sweats set ten minutes after Amber left, opened the front door. The sun had set behind him, and his dark skin and captivating eyes found her soul. That was something Amber hadn’t done in a long time. Or at least she didn’t feel her soul being found. 

He was a nanosecond quicker to hug her. It was tight and it was warm…

It was everything that had gone from Amber ever since their relationship ended. 

She let him indoors and they simply grabbed some salty Tostitos before going upstairs to the theatre room where they would turn on the second season of House Of Cards. They’d been binge watching for so long, and they were desperate to keep going. 

Sophia plopped down in the black theatre seat, but Sawyer Holland’s concerned eyes would not fade or falter. “Are you okay?” He asked quietly. 

Sophia’s head turned to her right. “Of course I am.”

“You promise me?”

She put her hand over the armrest to his, grasping for the familiarity. Grasping for the home she lost in Amber. 

“I promise you, Sawyer.”

With reluctance, Sawyer inhaled and said “Okay.”

And their hands kept held together like they had for the past two months. 

So for the next three hours, they watched House Of Cards, grabbing a gigantic bag of tostitos when the first serving ran out. Sophia was absorbed by the screen, but Sawyer’s head gears ran endlessly.

Eventually, he couldn’t hold it in anymore. “Why do you think he wanted you?”

Sophia inhaled. “I’m not that special. I did a hell of a lot at Leipzig, but I did nothing-I was useless in Siberia.” She scoffed. “But I did what I could...I wasn’t a miracle, but I tried.”

“No, you _ are _ a miracle.”

Sophia knitted her brows. “Of seven billion people, why am I a miracle?”

“Because in a world of people so terrible, you’re the sun.”

“...In Orlando, I’m the sun. On the Earth, I’m an about-to-die star.”

“Please don’t die.”

“I won’t, but you know what I mean...I’m worried about Amber though.”

Sawyer nodded, the guilt flooding his veins. He felt he took Sophia from her, and Sawyer had never been a very selfish person. He just wanted to be happy with her...But he didn’t want it so bad that someone was falling apart. At least he thought she was. He at least imagined that a loss like it happened would be agonizing. 

“I know, Soph...She’s gonna be okay though.”

Her head snapped to the side. “How would you know that?”

“I think I know her enough-”

“Do you?  _ Do _ you? Kindergarten beats you.”

“We all went there since kindergarten.”

“Yeah, but I was her best friend since kindergarten, you weren’t.”

Sawyer inhaled. “But I watch her in some classes...She talks to others-Gopi, she hangs with Gopi and Bethany, a bit-she seems pretty happy with them.”

“That’s where you go wrong, Saw, she hides every negative emotion.”

“Well maybe you don’t see her enough to tell how authentic her external emotions are.”

Sophia opens her mouth but closes it. She clicked her tongue. “You have a point there.” Out of all randomness and externalization of hidden feeling, she slides over the armrest onto Sawyer.

“Um, Soph-”

“What?” She turns her head.

“Um you’re-,” He is on the verge of stammering. His cheeks felt warm.

“Am I making something sensitive?” She asks with somehow, no smirk. 

“I thought we made a decision.”

“I really wanna reconsider, Saw.”

Sawyer swallows. “Getting me riled up is the absolute worst thing you could do.”

“You did it to me, first.”

“Well-”

“Gosh darn, what a thigh!” She exclaims. All she earns is a stern look from him. 

…

“Your room.”

“My room.”

 

It was midnight, and Amber was on her computer. Skyping, particularly. There wasn’t much else to do, anyways. But she loved talking to Peter. Peter, who made her laugh and smile much more authentically than Gopi and Bethany did-or even Sophia did, at this point.

“Amber, you look exhausted.”

“Talking to you is better than sleeping.”

“Yeah, but you need to sleep!”

Amber ran her fingers through her hair so her palm could rest on her scalp, her elbow sitting on her pillow. “Well, maybe sleep is for the weak.”

“Are you calling me weak?”

“Yep.”

“Amber!”

Even with the slowly-appearing dark circles and the exhaustion she felt, Amber laughed. “But actually, I should sleep, though. It’s midnight here.”

“Midnight here? You know we’re in the same timezone, right?”

“Oh yeah, whoops.” Amber yawned and rubbed her eyes. “Dammit, I don’t wanna sleep.”

“Go to sleep, Amber.”

“Five more minutes.”

“Fine, I’m gonna time five more minutes.” Peter literally grabs his phone over the camera and starts a timer. “Until then, we can talk.”

Amber rolled her eyes before she focused them. “Wait, I have a meme.”

“A meme?”

“Well, Sophia’s meme-her camera roll has a flipping billion of them. But it’s hilarious, you have to see it.” Amber pulls up her Macbook’s camera roll to start sending him the meme. 

“What is it?”

“You’ll see…”

Amber sends the meme to him. Peter, all the way in New York, who sat on his twin bed with the lights off in his room as well. 

“Hate when older people say ‘you’re too young to be tired’ alright Margaret you’re too old to be alive but here we are...Lol, true.”

“WAIT I HAVE ONE MORE!”

“Jesus, why so loud?!”

Amber scrambles to find the other meme and sends it to him. 

…

“HOLY SHIT!”

Amber burst out into laughter that nearly became howling, not even caring if she woke her parents up. But she felt so drained, afterward…

“I’m going to sleep.”

“With three minutes left?”

“Yep. Bye, Peter. Talk to you tomorrow.”

“Bye.”

And with that, she ended the Skype call and her eyes fell closed as her head hit the pillow. 

  
  
  


Her eyes crept open, but at the slowest pace possible. It took time to process it, but she figured out that he was leaning against the queen-sized bed’s white headboard reading a book. 

“You haven’t finished ‘Satellite’ yet, Sawyer? Jesus, get on my level,” She pushed out in a murmur.

The boy looked down at the redhead. “Morning, Sleeping Beauty.”

“Mm. I was sleeping, but yes, I am the most beautiful of the beauties you will ever meet, bitch.”

Sawyer snickered for a moment. “That’s true, though,” He admitted. He looked at the time on his Apple Watch. “It’s Saturday, you know. We can do whatever. I only have a little bit of chemistry homework that I can do whenever. It’s easy.”

Sophia blinked endlessly as she tried to get the time on hers. “It’s six. We can get dressed and get breakfast if you want. I wanna do something with my life on a day that’s supposed to be completely sunny.”

“If ya want to, Narzys.”

“Okay, Hallo. Rip the sheets off me so it’s not as hard, will ya?”

Sawyer ripped off the pale blue silk sheets and the white flower appliqué comforter. 

“Goddammit!” Sophia nearly yells. 

“Will that be all, Miss Nars?”

She rolls her eyes. “That’ll be all, Mr. Holland.” She turns on her copper bead sconce and goes to open up her blinds. It’s a morning twilight, the sun way below the horizon. The horizon, however, is cream yellow and fades into a gentle pale blue.

She exhales. 

“I think when it’s sunny, you are sunny. When it’s cloudy, you are cloudy as hell.”

“At this point, Saw, It’s an aesthetic. I dunno what to tell you.” Sophia finds her way to her closet room, going straight to the right where her summer and spring clothes resided. She pulled a blush-pink blouse with a mild floral design from the tops bar, and a pair of high-waisted white-wash jeans from the pants rack. She started to pull those on in a corner before she slides on her red jelly sandals and goes to her makeup-filled vanity. “Just lemme put on my makeup, okay? By the way, you gonna go back home and get another pair of clothes orrrrrrrr-”

“Yeah, it’s only five doors down. I’ll be back here in a few minutes while you do whatever, ‘kay?”

Sophia pulled out her Bobbi Brown foundation. “Yeah. Bye!”

“Bye, Soph!"   
  


Taking all of her time to do her makeup flawlessly (especially on the Morphe 3502 eyeshadow). She finished using her setting spray just as Sawyer walked in wearing an olive scoop neck with tan cargo shorts. 

“You ready?”

“Mmhm.” Sophia turned and Sawyer didn’t even need to blink. Her makeup didn’t make a difference to how he liked her like how some boys felt. 

“Where do you wanna go?”

Sophia grabbed her phone. “Um, where do  _ you _ wanna go?”

“How much you wanna risk?”

“I’m not looking for someone with some superhuman risks.”

“Some superhero. Some fairytale bliss.”

“Just somebody I can turn to.”

“Somebody I can kiss.”

“I want something just like this.”

…

“Clubhouse?”

“Clubhouse.”

 

They ended up walking there, the walk not being too lengthy. It, thankfully, would only be about seventy-four degrees that day. If it was anything above that, Sophia would’ve said ‘screw makeup’ due to the fact that it melted easily into oblivion.

It opened at five thirty every morning, even though most people came at seven through ten. They were the only ones there, so they ended up being able to take the bacon without worries of it running out. It always did very quickly. 

They found a dual-chaired table right by the panoramic view of the golf course, the sun slowly starting to come up little-by-little. 

Sophia finished a piece of bacon. “I was thinking, Saw.”

Sawyer looked up from his waffles and sausage, being a black-and-white contrast to Sophia’s pancakes with bacon and eggs. 

“In late July, it’s your fifteenth birthday. My mom has a really nice villa down at Pompano Beach. It’s South Florida, but it’s nice and not in a bad area. You love the beach, I love the beach, Amber and Gopi love the beach-hell, Casper loves the beach.”

“I think we’d be fine without Casper.” Sawyer thought of the wheat-skinned dirty-blonde. He played basketball and was generally his friend, but he didn’t get along the best with Gopi...or the amount of estrogen. Well actually, he’d probably hit on Sophia the whole time. 

“Alright, you, me, Gopi, Amber. Easy.”

“...Would Amber be-”

“You, me, Gopi?”

“Why not you and me?”

Sophia smiled. “Just thought I’d be inclusive. Jeez, I dunno. Just an idea, we don’t even have to do it. The villa’s huge, though, so just about anyone we wanted could come. There’s ten bedrooms.”

Sawyer nodded. “That would be really nice, though. Bonfire, make smores, watch the waves and sunrise and sunset.”

“Yeah, Saw…” She said. The glimmer in her blue-green eyes could only make him say one thing:

“Let’s go.”

“Cool. I’ll talk to my mom about it, then. You can come with your parents and lil sis, possibly some friends. Then July twenty fourth would be a lovely day.” Sophia bit into the buttermilk pancake. “God, these are amazing,” She says lightly through her chewing. 

Sawyer thinks of something, causing him to pull up an app on his phone. “By the way...Remember the last time we went down to Pompano-wait, no, Miami Beach?”

Sophia nodded. 

“Remember when we sent that sea droid probe down there to mess around for fun?”

“Yeah, how’s the baby doing?”

“That’s the thing, it detected some activity right on the sea’s floor.”

Sophia knitted her brows. “You know that could be anything, right? It could be drills, it could be animals, it could be the tectonic plates shifting like they always do.”

“No, this is different.” He gives Sophia his phone and she looks at the screen graphic sideways. “You see that? It’s some sort of electrical or light-sourced energy, but it’s not identifiable. However, it has spurts of energy that go out at least five hundred miles into the Atlantic Ocean.”

Her brows stay knitted. “I...don’t know, Saw. But we can’t look at it now in here. We’ll look at it at my place.”

“But what if it’s something big?”

Sophia’s eyes had a spark that hit him like a bullet. “We’ll find out.”


	5. Chapter 5

“We never looked at tha-”

“That probe droid-I know!” Sophia said. She tied her hair back into a ponytail at the nape of her neck. She told Monday to open up the data on the probe. The A.I did as told, spawning a screen of data and analytics into the air. But the data was absolutely different from last time. It’s escalated, now, the energy is going out for one thousand miles into the Atlantic, and it’s overall stronger than two months ago. 

Sophia walks up closer to the screen, tilting her head slightly. “That’s strong enough to poison and kill local sea life and pollute the water-except that energy there is as strong as the Fukushima plant...Dammit, Sawyer, I should’ve listened to you.” Sophia’s jaw clenched closed. She exhaled. 

“Should we report that to law enforcem-” Sawyer starts, clasping his hands together, but his girlfriend interrupts him. 

“I don’t know how law enforcement would handle this. Law enforcement sometimes screw up, and they’ve never faced something like this before, so they’re going to screw up.” Sophia bit her lip. 

“You should call Tony Stark.”

Sophia turned around. “Maybe...That is actually a good idea, but not right now. I wanna turn on the probe’s camera and see what it could be. For all I know, it could be a swarm of anglerfish. Turn on the probe’s screen.”

The screen showed a clear camera of the deep dark ocean. It was nearly black, bits of algae floating around. Nothing so far. 

“Get closer to the energy, will you?”

The probe starts to swim downwards for a solid ten seconds, making Sophia’s lack of patience grow even worse. 

But what they both saw next was unbelievable. 

The probe showed them a structure-an unthinkably massive structure of metal and neon blue lights. There were fire-colored flickers here-and-there, and Sophia could make out what looked like a logo…

“A…” Sophia squinted her eyes. “Acronus?”

Sawyer walked up to the screen. “There’s divers down there. What’re they doing?”

A head, however, popped in front of the probe’s camera, making Sophia jump backward. The screen suddenly went gray.

“What was that?!” 

“Backwards that footage to the face, Monday!” Sawyer commands. 

She did. What they both saw next was kinda terrifying...okay, very terrifying.

The head was absolutely not human. The skin was pale blue, the eyes were a darker shade with barely a black pupil and more of a diamond shape with veins under the skin bulging at its undereyes. It had gills right below its jawline, protruding ever-so-slightly, and it had a mouth without lips, seeming like skin with an odd opening. 

“That might cause me to have my first ever nightmare,” Sophia remarked. “Monday, did you see a logo?”

“Yes.” The A.I showed exactly where Sophia made out a logo. “Acronus.”

“Any info on it-does it even exist?” Sawyer asks. 

“Search results only pull up a man by the name of Carlos Ubyetan. Thirty one years old, Caucasian, male, born January-”

“Does he run this business?”

“No. He is an ‘executive’ as the webpage says for Acronus. The webpage, however, is very sketchy.” The site is blue, of course, like everything else she’d seen, with gray. 

“Any other important info?” She asks, crossing her arms. 

“They have a location, or at least a random address. 4876 Westhill SE, Miami, FL.”

“Show that on Google Maps?”

The map showed an area, but no pin. “It is in between East Little Havana and Downtown Miami.”

“My mom would hate for us to go Downtown.”

“You’re saying that as if we’re gonna go downtown.”

“We may.”

“WHAT?”

Sophia shuts off the screen and grabs another backpack. “Look, I have a feeling that there are three possibilities for calling Tony. One: there could be a voicemail he never listens to. Two: he could pick up and not care or call the FBI. Three: He could tell me to call Happy, and I know that man will not listen to any damn word I have to say. So what do we do Sawyer-and don’t you dare say tell my mom, she’ll probably talk to Tony and he’ll probably throw it off as nothing-you get my point?!” She blurts out all at once. 

Sawyer sits down on her bed. “Soph…”

“I won’t just let something bad happen when we knew the whole time.”

“Sophia, if we’re going to do this…” He starts but sighs and his voice drops. “We’ll need help.”

“From who, Saw? From  _ who _ ?”

Sawyer chuckles. “You don’t even know how much help we can get.”

 

Gopi Aruna Kapoor opened her front door to find two people standing there. She deeply exhaled. “Whaddup?”

“We need to talk,” Sawyer replies. 

Gopi motions for them to come inside. Her house was a fairly sized house, even as a one-storied house. It was actually designed by Sophia’s mom, designing the tiled kitchen with graceful gray walls for a living room. They went down a hallway to her bedroom, though, which had lavender walls and a long window facing her bright green yard. Her bronze posted canopy bed had little space between itself and the window, and a large pink-toned mandala curtain hung from the bed. Beside it was her black-wood nightstand, her dresser covered in jewelry and two candles on a wall across from the bed. There was also a humidifier, making the room smell calming.

Gopi plopped down in her bean bag in another corner. “Okay. What do we need to talk about so badly?”

“Show her.”

Gopi raised her thin black brows.

“Just show her.”

Gopi pulled out her phone and pulled up a video. She handed the phone to the redhead, hoping for the best. 

Sophia played the video. She watched Gopi, who was outside in the dark. 

In a snap, her thin caramel-skinned body was at this point and was at this point. 

“So super-speed?” She asks, looking up and handing her phone back to Gopi. 

“You and Sawyer weren’t the only ones who felt a shock on your arm down in Miami.”

Sophia nodded, remembering exactly when a shock jolted her arm two years ago. She pulled out her own phone and pulled up her snapshots. “Something’s wrong down in Miami. We think you can help.”

Gopi looked through the snapshots. She saw the structure and the creature in the diver’s suit. She analyzed it closely and carefully, the gears in her head spun. 

“We’d get expelled.”

“Gopi, Floridians could die. I don’t think that we want that on our conscience,” Sophia retorts. "At least I don't. Not everyone thinks like me, though."

“No, we’d cause Floridians to die.”

“You don’t know that, Gopi, but all we can do is try,” Sawyer debates. “All we can do is try.”

“I won’t get my life ruined by the news asking who’s that super fast Indian girl down in Miami trying to kill the unkillable?”

“They won’t be able to ask that if they’re dead because of whatever the hell that creature is that I showed you.”

Gopi stood up. “Every single one of our lives would be ruined.”

“At least not dead, right? C’mon, Gopi, please?” Sawyer pleads. 

Gopi exhales. She’s never appreciated what she had-hell, she never got to join track because of it, and it constantly was a struggle. She had to hide it-she had to hide it from everyone she knew. Her family didn’t know, many other friends didn’t know. Her uncle who she trusted more than nearly everyone didn’t know. Sawyer knew, though, and now Sophia. She liked them both, she really did...Gopi just wasn’t sure if she could…

Gopi went into her closet, yanking out a duffel. “When do we leave?” She asks quietly. 

Sophia and Sawyer look at each other. 

“Asap?” Sophia says questioningly. 

“Tonight, maybe. We’ll meet and leave from the clubhouse. But there’s one more person we need to find.”

“What can he or she do?”

“Kamala can shapeshift and heal people.”

“...We need her,” Sophia deadpans.

“Is that it?” Gopi asks. 

“It’s you, me, Sawyer, Kamala, and Amber,” Sophia replies.

Gopi inhales, her chest rising up. “One hell of a team.”

“One hell of a problem to fight, too.”

“You have Kamala’s number?, Gopi?” Sawyer asks. 

“Yeah, lemme call her...Hello? ...Can you come over? ...We need you for something-something big...Sawyer, Sophia, Amber, and I...It’s involving Miami...Bye.”

Gopi hung up on Kamala and pulled out a maroon v-neck and jeans. “How will we get to Miami?”

“Kamala’s sixteen, right? Easy, she can drive us there. She has a Hyundai SUV," Sophia explained.

“But she can only drive from six in the morning until eleven at night.”

“Than we better rush fast ‘cause we need to figure this out. Lemme make a call real quick.”

“To who?” Gopi asks. 

“A friend.”

Sophia steps outside into the hallway and finds Tony’s number in her phone. He gave it to her for emergencies, while Happy’s number was for anything minor. This, however, was an emergency. 

She raised the phone to her ear and waited…

Nothing came. 

It wasn’t a huge surprise, though, because Tony Stark had other things to do with his life. Sophia understood...She understood very well. Not like he’d ever be there for her. Not like he thought he was supposed to. 

She found out last month. Curiosity spiked over Sophia’s head one Wednesday morning over her paternal parentage. She never had a dad. Only a mom. Yes, she loved her mom...But in all of this, where was her father? Not like she'd ever tell anyone, but she had slightly found him to be the closest thing to a father figure she had. Well what a mind-blowing coincidence. 

So she put her blood into Shield to match it with someone, knowing they had countless profiles that she could possibly be matched with. It was funny, though, when she got the result. She looked nothing like him, yet acted 87.96 % like him. 

So her last name was a lie, in reality. If November Nars married Tony Stark, her full name would be Sophia Amara Stark, or Sophia Amara Nars-Stark. But nope. God, she didn’t even know if they were in love, once. Her mom only claimed him to be a really close friend. 

Was he, though?

The phone beeped so she could leave a message. “Hey, Mr. Stark. It’s Sophia. Listen, even if you don’t ever get this message...Miami’s in trouble. A probe detected something absolutely insane on the Miami Beach sea floor. It’s an absolutely massive structure by some company called Acronus. And you know what happened? Some...creature-some ugly blue creature, destroyed my probe down there. It looked like a human overall structure, but it had an incredibly alien face. I dunno, Mr. Stark, but I’m going to guess they’re space aliens or genetically bred. We found a website, though, with a name being Carlos Ubyetan. He probably knows quite the bit...So yeah, Mr. Stark. I just thought it might, oh I dunno, maybe be of some importance? I dunno who could deal with it, though. Like, don’t call the FBI or CIA or the NCIS. They aren’t trained for aliens. The Miami police can’t do anything either. Just hang tight, Mr. Stark...Thanks.”

Sophia ended the message and sighed. 

She wish he knew.

Gopi opened up her bedroom door. “There’s one more person who can help.”

“Who is it?”

“You know that incident involving that Spiderman guy? That Stark packaging? It turns out Amber knows him from Tumblr. His name’s Peter Parker.”

Sophia slid her phone in her black leather jacket’s pocket. “Yeah, but he’s in New York, right?”

“No, he’s here right now. Visiting at Amber’s house.”

“Alright, then.” Sophia’s thumb rubbed over her rose-gold flake phone case. 

“We have a team.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not really any warnings except breast teasing (would i even count that really as a warning???)

Kamala Khan’s white SUV door shut closed. “So I’ve been requested apparently to fight aliens?” She asks, her lips shaded in a shade of brownish-nude which was from Mac, her go-to makeup brand. 

Sophia exhaled as Peter and Amber walked over. “We don’t know for sure. But I feel like if we tell all law enforcement that they won’t be able to take care of it well because they’ll die. So we’re basically a private unit, now. Have fun, Kam.”

Amber crossed her arms, a slightly nervous Peter Parker walking beside her. When Sawyer called telling her everything, she was unsure. She wasn’t unsure because of what was happening, but because of Sawyer and Sophia. Sophia, who was the love of her life, she thought. Maybe she lied when she had told her she liked her too. Amber couldn’t even tell at all. It was painful, but she wasn’t going to do anything extravagant about it. She hadn’t been extravagant since four months ago.

She mildly smiled. “Peter, this is Sophia, Sawyer, Kamala, and Gopi. Sophia, Sawyer, Kamala, Gopi, it’s Peter.”

“Hey guys, I’m Peter.”

“As we’re told,” Sophia replies. “Got your suit?”

“Yeah.”

“Wait a minute,” Gopi says, pointing her finger up into the air. “We don’t have suits.”

Sophia shrugged. “You don’t need a suit for your powers like some of us do. So wear whatever, Gopi, and you’ll be fine.”

Gopi nodded before Kamala told everyone to get into the car. Gopi sat in the front, Sawyer and Sophia sat in the middle, and Peter and Amber sat in the back with the few bags. Kamala then sighed and started the car, turning on the GPS to get to Miami, and driving through the neighborhood and leaving. 

“Wait, but where will we stay?” asks Peter. 

“Either we’ll stay at my mom’s villa at Pompano Beach or we’ll stay at a Marriot-orrrrr my mom actually has an extra apartment in Miami too and I have the addresses to either. I brought three hundred dollars just in case,” Sophia answers to the back. “Hey, does this car have carplay?”

“Yeah…” Kamala answers, turning onto another road, increasingly getting further and further from their home neighborhood. 

“Good, we’re playing music.”

  
  


“ _ MAMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHH _ ” 

 

The whole car sang in giant grins to the tune of the all-famous Bohemian Rhapsody at ten twenty at night, only another thirteen minutes until they get to Miami, deciding they would stay there instead of the villa. 

 

_ “Didn’t mean to make you cryyyyyyy If I’m not back this time tomorrooooowwwwww Carry onnnn carryy onnn as if nothing matttteerrrrrsssssssssssss! _ ” 

 

_ “Too late, my time has come _

_ Sends shivers down my spine _

_ Body's aching all the time _

_ Goodbye everybody I've got to go _

_ Gotta leave you all behind and face the truth _

_ Mama, ooo (anyway the wind blows) _

_ I don't want to die _

_ I sometimes wish I'd never been born at all” _

 

Sophia started her own solo for the next part when it eventually came, everyone jerking their heads back and forth to the rythm, everyone else doing the background lyrics.

 

_ “I see a little silhouetto of a man _

_ Scaramouch, scaramouch will you do the fandango _

_ Thunderbolt and lightning very very frightening me _

 

Gopi took the high Galileos as Peter took the the low. 

 

_ “Gallileo, Gallileo,” _

_ Gallileo, Gallileo, _

_ Gallileo Figaro - magnifico _

 

Sawyer took the next solo while everyone sang everything else.

_ “But I'm just a poor boy and nobody loves me _

_ He's just a poor boy from a poor family _

_ Spare him his life from this monstrosity _

_ Easy come easy go will you let me go _

_ Bismillah! No we will not let you go - let him go _

_ Bismillah! We will not let you go - let him go _

_ Bismillah! We will not let you go let me go _

_ Will not let you go let me go (never) _

_ Never let you go let me go _

_ Never let me go ooo _

_ No, no, no, no, no, no, no _

_ Oh mama mia, mama mia, mama mia let me go _

_ Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me _

_ For me _

_ FOR MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE” _

Everyone banged their heads to the music except Kamala, who gently rocked her head in hopes that she wouldn’t crash.

 

_ “So you think you can stone me and spit in my eye?!?!”  _ Sophia sings.

_ “So you think you can love me and leave me to die?!?!?” Amber sings. _

_ “Oh baby, can't do this to me baby _

_ Just gotta get out just gotta get right outta here….” _

 

Peter took the next last lines. 

_ “Nothing really matters _

_ Anyone can see _

_ Nothing really matters _

_ Nothing really matters to me _

_ Anyway the wind blows…” _

 

Kamala stopped the Sing!Kareoke video recording and uploaded it to Sophia’s account.

“I had...no fucking idea we could sing that well,” Gopi says, breaking the silence.

“Bitch, me neither, but we did it-wow,” Sophia replies. She exhales. “Okay, so you got the directions.”

“Yep, I do indeed.” Kamala took a shift in lanes. She eventually got them into downtown safely by ten forty-eight. They reached the apartment building, an extremely tall and luxurious building called “Sunhill Grove”.

They parked themselves in the parking garage accordingly, taking their little luggage upstairs to the highest floor. 

Upon entering the number on the elevator number board, Kamala knitted her brows. “Your mom has a penthouse?”

“She builds around twenty houses a year that are over a million dollars in value and usually in price so yes, I wouldn’t be very surprised if she did.”

They arrived, the door opening up to an extremely massive and glorious penthouse. They didn’t see it at first, though, facing a second elevator. They turned to the right and that’s where the magic of money was. The floors were marbled and the ceilings were incredibly tall. There were wide and open views through the glass to see the Biscayne Bay waters and some of its buildings. A grand piano stood in the corner, and a massive and intricate chandelier hung gracefully from the ceiling. 

“Ten million solid, I am betting,” Kamala announces. 

“Monday, you there?” Sophia asks loudly, not knowing if her mom installed Monday in the apartment. Her mom had used this apartment a few times since she bought it the same year Sophia was born. It had been used as a short getaway, or possibly for a business thing. 

“Yes I am, Miss Nars.”

“How much is this penthouse worth?”

“Eight point six million.”

“Close, Kam. Anyways, guys, I’m pretty sure there’s like, five bedrooms plus the master so y’all can take every one of them, I don’t care, just lemme remind y’all to not leave it a disaster.”

“I don’t think I have the physical or mental ability to ruin such a beautiful penthouse,” Gopi breathes out. She thought Peter felt the same way, looking at his shocked face. 

Sophia turns her head to find the kitchen. “Um, Y'all can feast on whatever is in the pantry or fridge. If y’all need help ask Monday cause I’m gonna take a bath and analyze the sea floor again.”

Sophia walked off, leaving the four to find food in the fridge. As it turned out, there was food. Breyers chocolate ice cream, a frozen pizza, cheese sticks, oranges, and Minute Maid fruit punch.

Amber nods. “Sufficient.”

 

Sophia, meanwhile, had stripped off her clothes, putting out her pair of sweats to wear as pajamas for the night. She soaked in the warm water with her hair tied up in a fringy bun against the back of her head for about twenty-five minutes, now. Monday had, once again, shown her the seafloor data. It was getting worse. The radiation was starting to make certain sea elevations completely black, and the fish were dying. She still didn’t know what Acronus was, though, and it was pecking at her brain.

“Knock knock?” 

Sophia looked back to see Sawyer. She nodded, not minding him coming in. He walked to the side of the bathtub. “You look nice.”

She rolled her eyes. “I always do, don’t I?”

“More than nice, though…” He said with a loving flicker in his eyes. Sawyer, however, changed the subject. “But um, how’s that Acronus structure doing?”

Sophia exhaled. “That energy is more like low-key radiation. It’s starting to kill off fish right under Miamians’s noses. It’s not good, Saw.”

“What about the address?”

“We’ll go tomorrow. I think we’ll go at six. We have to get this done...God, my mom might have a panic attack.”

“Then why are you so desperate to do this?”

Sophia looks him in the eye. “I can’t just stand around when I know I am capable of really being able to get this off the table and into the trash can...It’s not Siberia. This is nothing like Siberia.”

Sawyer exhaled and leaned against the countertop. “It might be worse, Soph. That blue alien creature still scares me-what the hell could that be?”

“I think it’s genetically engineered and bred, probably in a lab or something-maybe in mass amounts. It could be slavery for all I know.”

“And what if it is? What happens to them-even if there is an them?”

Sophia bites her lip. “Humanity is worth protecting...that species probably isn’t. I don’t give a damn about them if they’re worth nothing, I give a damn about the human society the Avengers had sworn to protect.”

“Sophia, we’re not the Avengers.”

“We’re close enough. We’re their youth squadron if anything. The deadliest teenagers on Earth. You know it’s true.”

“Yeah, but do we really want to carry that title?”

Sophia swallows. “It’s better than being the weakest. And besides, it means we help the weakest...Who doesn’t like that?”

“Acronus doesn’t like that.”

“...True.”

He leans up off of the counter. “Well...I’ll let you keep looking nice until you get out. I’d say we could get into the shower but…”

“Sixteen, Sawyer-it’s a few days over a year, now.”

“I know.”

“Two more years...if we’re together by then.”

“Hopefully so. At this point, you’re so gorgeous that I don’t see other girls as pretty anymore. Period.”

Sophia laughed. “Face or body?”

“Both.”

“What about my personality?” She smirks. Sophia brings her knees closer to her chest, considering getting out. The idea of sitting in the comfort of a bed with him got more attractive. 

“I don’t know what a personality is in any other girl I’ve ever met.”

“What are they, then? Brainless, Saw-that’s offensive!”

“Says Narzys.”

“Narzys includes occasional narcissism, not constantly. Hallo is the same way.”

“How in the world so, Narzys?” He asks humorously with the tilt of his head. 

“Well you’re all ‘I read so many books I’m so smart’ ass like really!”

“Oh my god, the genius daughter thinks so low of me!”

“Yes, the genius Stark thinks so low of you!” She jokes. Sophia then realizes what she said. She called herself a Stark…

“Hey,” Sawyer said softly. “You okay?” He asked. He was the only other one besides Sophia and her mom that knew. 

“Yeah...I just called myself something that he doesn’t know I am...I don’t even fucking look like him like the fuck? Weird genetics-not even the eyes? Blue-green eyes and red hair like my mom...That’s so weird. But god, I have his personality running through my veins mixed with my mom’s...Crazy, isn’t it?”

“It is...But I love you no matter who made you.”

“Made me,” She rolled her eyes and said in a mutter. 

“I love you for you and nobody else before you. I mean like, I’m grateful they loved each other enough to-”

“Oh, geez-they didn’t even probably love each other! They probably got drunk like Tony Stark would do! He screwed around with her, had a fun time, vavoom and vanish. Yet fourteen years later they’re friends and she lies right to his face that I am not his daughter! ...I just don’t know,” She blurted all at once. Sophia sighed. “You know what, screw it. Hand me a towel, will ya? I say we get in bed and start reading ‘Our Own Private Universe’. Did you bring your copy?”

“Yes, I actually did. I figured that you’d ask.”

“Of course I would. Books make you smarter, right? I’d love a genius boyfriend!”

“Are you calling me not smart, Miss Nars?”

“Yes I actually am, Mr. Holland!”

“Hey!” He exclaimed, playfully offended. Sophia splashed a little bit of water at him, reaching his shorts without bother. 

“Okay, well I’m getting out so stay here at your own will.”

“Well if you want me out I’ll-”

“I said at your own will straightly with no extra commentary.” Sophia rises out of the bathtub, grabbing the towel and wrapping it around her.

“You’re beautiful.”

“What, these?” Sophia asks jokingly, her stretch-marked thigh shaking a bit. She then goes back to hiding it under the towel, starting to dry her back. 

“Of course those-everything, really, Soph.”

“Boys hate stretch marks.” Sophia starts drying her legs. 

“Yeah, but I love you too much to care about your stretch marks or how much you weigh or if you have a pudge here or there.”

“Glad to be supported.” Sophia is now done drying and grabs her sports bra. “Again, your own will.”

“My own will it is-you’re such a tease for someone who’s pushing sixteen!”

At first, Sawyer looked out the window to the Miami buildings. His eyes slowly went over to Sophia, who was definitely taking her time to put the pale blue fabric over her breasts. 

Sophia takes a few steps closer to him, making his breath slightly hitch. “I could always put on my red lace push up if you want…” She whispers. Sophia grabs the bra and thumbs the fabric. 

“...Are you sure you don’t want a massage instead of starting the new book?”

Sophia smiles. “I think I’ll definitely take a massage.” She puts the bras down and leaves them with her tomorrow clothes. She puts on her panties, though. 

“I guess I’m going braless, tonight.”


End file.
